1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to search engines. More specifically, the field of the invention relates to generating search results based on user feedback.
2. Description of the Related Art
A search engine typically runs over a predefined collection of documents, returning all documents that match a string of search terms. To obtain desired information, a user typically submits a string including only a few search terms (such as one or two search terms). When the string includes only a few search terms, the search engine may return a large number of documents in response to the string. Further, even when the string includes many search terms, the search engine may nevertheless return a large number of documents when the predefined collection of documents is large (e.g., when the predefined collection of documents is the World Wide Web).
From a perspective of the user, not all of the returned documents may be relevant (or be of equal relevance) to the string of search terms. Further, the user may need to sift through many of the returned documents (including relevant documents and irrelevant documents) before the user obtains the desired information. For instance, the search engine may organize returned documents into pages, each page including ten returned documents. In such a case, the user may peruse several pages before obtaining the desired information. Further, it may not be feasible for the user to sift through all (or even most) of the returned documents when the number of returned documents is large.